What did you do in the Apiary today?

[itma]

Moved a colony from a white poly to a cedar, (the poly shouldn't have been white), for a clean and repaint to 'old english green'.

Strange echoes in here!

My (old english green) repainted (ex-white) pains poly was reloaded with its 14x12 framed colony today.
Other than a quick internal scrape (and a washing soda scrub of the floor module), the main aim was cosmetic.

The colony is doing extremely well.
They recognised and visibly relaxed once back into their old home, regardless of the new decor.
While their frames (in unchanged order) were parked in a stack of new poly supers on a wood OMF, on their usual stand, in the exact same place, they did seem less than relaxed, with quite a lot hanging around on the outside and being somewhat fractious for the 48 hours in temporary accommodation.

 

[Shabro]

inserted varroa boards under the advice of NBI

 

[richardbees]

Shabro

tbh I hadn't seen that advice....is it because of the weather?

 

[Mike a]

Combined two weak colonies, dispatched one queen in the process which kept producing really defensive bees. Two more vile queens will get the same treatment in the next month or so and finally shut down my top bar hive and gave the small colony to a friend.

Going to start raising lots of queens along with several other members of my association, not expecting a high percentage success rate at first just aiming to get the methodology and timing right to start with.

 

[Shabro]

Shabro

tbh I hadn't seen that advice....is it because of the weather?

Yeah, he came for a talk at the association meeting last night and advised us to keep the boards in for a while until the temperatures get better, so that they have the best chance possible of building up.

 

[Goran]

Made finally first split this year, in the moment of splitting there were 14 frames of brood. This colony was undecided - want to swarm or not.. Numbers are increasing.. I am still undecided what to do with this line, the best in spring build up, first in swarm mood ( even made of space), nicely built frames ( 10 new frames already). Little to much nervous on the frames, bit to much aggressive. But brought also for now great amount of honey..

 

[chalkie]

Did my first check of the season yesterday mostly due to ill health and crap weather, all four of my hives have survived and seem to be doing well, only saw one queen but plenty of eggs and brood in the others.
Two hives where left on double brood the third hive had a super left on and the fourth just the brood box but it was getting low on stores so swapped some stores from the double brood.

 

[garlicpickle]

Finally got to open the hive up and have a look inside.

Didn't see HM but was pleased to see brood in all stages, bees making wax, lots of pollen coming in and they still have some stores left too. No preparations to swarm yet thank goodness. Took off the little bit of sticky fondant that was still lurking there in the corners of the packet. Scraped a bit of brace comb off the top bars, pulled up some weeds around the hive - that's about it really but it was great

 

[itma]

Yeah, he came for a talk at the association meeting last night and advised us to keep the boards in for a while until the temperatures get better, so that they have the best chance possible of building up.

Ummm.
It is standard advice for about the end of February.
The season is about 4 weeks late, some say.
Even allowing for that, the advice is probably still a month late!

I've had very few days with an air temperature over 15C, nevertheless a couple of colonies have supers on, and I am watching out for QCs when inspecting.


/// NBI??? SBI or RBI ... not met an NBI.

 

[Chris Luck]

Why is the advice to leave the "boards" in?

Surely it's better to keep the OMF clear, I do all the year and it gets colder here in winter.

It's damp that's the killer.

Chris

 

[itma]

Why is the advice to leave the "boards" in?

Surely it's better to keep the OMF clear, I do all the year and it gets colder here in winter.

Chris, the idea is to do something/anything to boost the hive temperature to promote earlier brooding. Hence closing the hive bottom for a couple of weeks.
Similar idea to Finman's electric heaters.

Does it do much?
Compared to a polyhive, probably very, very little.
Does it make the beek feel like he has done something? Undoubtedly.

Just a bit late now.

 

[WelshPaul]

Done a quick inspection today, happy to find BIAS on 9 frames, removed the little bits of fondant and gave them some 1:1 to give them a little boost.

 

[itma]

Done a quick inspection today, happy to find BIAS on 9 frames, removed the little bits of fondant and gave them some 1:1 to give them a little boost.

Brave man!
I'd have suggested that with brood on 9/11 frames in a single-brood national, it was time to be supering before they swarm.
"A little boost" is the last thing needed!
So I'd be advising getting the feed off before the brood nest is restricted by excess stores...

 

[yeogi75]

or go bouble brood don't forget put empty brood under occupied brood to keep heat at top where brood is

 

[Swarm]

or go bouble brood don't forget put empty brood under occupied brood to keep heat at top where brood is

 

[flemage]

just siting here waiting and hoping my two new poly nucs come soon, so i can save two hives that have been almost completly eaten by mice.

 

[Tom Bick]

Checked on a hive that was overwintered on 9 frames and found 9 frames of brood so I gave them two extra frames to keep them busy and will double brood at the weekend.

 

[WelshPaul]

Did put another drawn BB on but didn't want to say just in case I got slated on here for it. Glad you said do it that way, I was umming and arring to put it on top or underneath.

 

[Insy]

Done my weekly inspection today.

They was very busy bringing in lots of pollen mostly yellow and light brown, last week on inspection they didn't touch the super i placed on top nothing drawn out still as new as put on.
When i opened them up today i was amazing to find the whole super drawn out and filled, looks like they will be getting ready to cap some soon, so i placed another super on top to give me space as there was still many frames of capped bees ready to emerge in next week.
I had 2 stores + 9 brood in brood box and 5 stores + 6 brood in super which I'm very happy with, tempted to lift both supers above QE and stick another brood box under current one.
One thing that concerns me tho is i found about 15 play cups and on several frames i found bands 4cm diameter of drone brood going across bottom of frames, queen laying very well tho apart from that solid full frames side bar to side bar of worker brood.

Going to be a interesting year .
Overall a very happy chap.

 

[Hawklord]

Inspected all (5) colonies to check stores and expansion. All doing good but the home bred queen doing better than the others.